As you know, Jill and I have been training for a Half Marathon for the past 3 months. This past Saturday we ran in the Fort -4 -Fitness Half Marathon in downtown Ft. Wayne with our friends Dan and Katie.
When Jill first asked me if I would want to run a Half-Marathon, which is 13.1 miles, I thought there was no way I could do something like that. I mean, I do workout a lot and run four or five days a week. I knew it was going to take a big commitment of time and energy to run something like this. I ran cross country in high school but I have never run 13.1 miles in a race!
I was a little nervous when I woke up at 5:15 a.m Saturday for the big race. My stomach was churning as I had some issues with nerves running through my body. We got to the race early, like 6:45, so we had a little time to wait and stretch out. One of the things I hated about cross country was the wait before the race. I had those feelings Saturday also.
With nearly 3,000 people there, I have never been in a race like this one. Jill and I have been training hard the past three months and our goal was to finish under 2 hours and run together. We started out kind of fast, which is easy to do with all these runners. We really had a great pace (8:12 mile) throughout the whole race. I thought for sure I would start to die out at mile 10 but I was feeling really good.
As we approached the finish line, I could sense that we ran a great time. We finished in 1 hour and 47 minutes, which is pretty good for my first mini-marathon. Dan and Katie reached their goal as well and I am very proud of them! Running a Mini-Marathon is not easy and now I can say I accomplished it!
The atmosphere on race day was awesome! There were many people on the streets clapping and cheering for us. I want to thank my wonderful parents and aunt for getting up early on Saturday to support us! With people all around, it made this race go a lot quicker for me.
Will I run another Mini? When I first committed to this I thought this would be one and done. After the way I ran this race, I’m not going to completely rule another one out at this point. Right now, I am just thankful that all four of us made it and that our hard work paid off in a big way!
My results:
Finished 268 out of 1,651 runners
Finished 218/743 male runners
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2 comments:
WELL DONE!!! Next year the Helfrichs can run the mini together again! :)
Hi Craig,
We are the Helfrichs too! Dan and Mary from Columbia, Maryland. I saw your post under my Google Alerts for "Helfrich". I am running the Baltimore Half Marathon on October 11. I am glad you did so well!
Mary Helfrich
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